As Perfect As The Truth

Fireflies 

—Anonymous Painting

—Poems by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA
—Visuals Provided by D.R. Wagner

WINTER FIELDS

The rice fields are flooded,
Filled with a thousand snow geese,
The numbers growing,
In a white communion
At the beginning of Lent.

There is no room in the water
For the stars to reflect
The night sky.

Even the moon is a torn
Jagged slash interrupted by
Snow geese jostling and conversing.

The geese think of everything
And discuss it well into the night.

A cold fog prepares itself a few feet
Above the tules beneath which
Two thousand snow geese
Become silent and listen
To that silence for a perfect
Moment of the earth itself.

 The Wolf

—Anonymous Painting

THE DARK OF THE MOON

The evening curls up
Upon itself.

Last night it had what was left
Of the moon.  Tonight, nothing.

 Veg People

A SPANISH DREAM

All words have gone until morning
As are children who understand
Monsters and streets littered with dead.

We have our own prayers and chants,
Beating on half-filled bowls.
“Things have changed terribly,” they whisper.

“We can show you secrets
That once were disguised as alleys.

We will walk them with you
Until you become lost on any
Street corner, staring at the moon.”

 Veg People 2

THE LOVELY BOOKS

I have a charm based
In the sound of bells over
A quiet harbor at night.

A few lights flickering in rooms
High in buildings along the quay.

For a few moments I can hold
A melody-wrapped wind and gather
It to my chest.

I look out the window
Toward the sea.  At my back
A wall of books glimmers
In the candlelight.

All is as perfect as the truth.
I know I shall never find
This moment ever again.

I am unaware
How great a mystery this is.

 Calla 1

HISTORY

There is a roaring of a clock
Above a sea suspended from
A million days of careless remarks.

We visit here as servants
To a forgotten mind that has filled
With myths of great adventures
That can only be found
In children’s stories.

Shades built with plays of light
No longer circulate, old correspondences
Seen only in tapestries today.

They offer no hands to our understanding.
Eternity spins down and then
Back up up, over our heads.

We begin to think we are
Fountains, breathing.

 Calla 2

DRIFTING IN A CHARM

Holding the breath.

An intensity of caresses
Reminds one of looking
Upon the backs of nightmares
Bathed in the sweat and breathing
Only a legion of horses can bring
To this spawn of unwaking terror.

It is the silence, caught in the throat
That unlaces such a universe.
For moments we think it may
Be the curious breath between waves.

But all remains silent as
The words gather power in silence,
Then become a monument to
An eternity that remains
Unforgettable, lightning flashing
In the distance.

 Jujube (Chinese Fig) in Bloom

BETTER THAN THE MORNING

She was better than the morning.
Someone had broken off the end
Of the year and was trying to attach
A new one to it.

There were landscapes attached
With the most tenuous of threads.
Memories strung together by sleep
Abandoned by dreamers long before
The morning had even been called.

I have been summoned once again.
The pain returned around midnight.  It walked
Upright like a man.
It pulled me from sleep.

Made me feel I was part of something
Quite important that had to be spoken.
I rose from bed, found my desk.

The muse toying with me once again.
There was nothing in the night for me.
She held me for hour after hour.
“Just watch the stars,” she said.
“Aren’t they so beautiful tonight?”

Selfie

Today’s LittleNip:

Smell of salt water
White sand: hot under my feet
A gleaming, pink shell

—Anonymous

____________________

—Medusa, with many thanks to D.R. Wagner for today’s fine, fine poems and visuals!

 —Anonymous Photo

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